I went to the credit union today and closed the account I’d created for my Mom’s estate. Just a few days past a year from when she died the estate is closed. Bills paid, assets dissolved, proceeds distributed to the heirs.
It was all a bit unnerving, writing the final checks on estate account, spending it down to $0.00. But in the end it all balanced.
I can make all the numbers come out right. I’m still struggling with the emotions though.
The first presidential election I could vote in was 1976, Jimmy Carter vs Gerald Ford, that was a no-brainer, and I’ve voted in every election and primary since then.
But I’d never watched an inauguration until January 20th, 2020. I’m not one for pomp and circumstance, and politics and political speeches bore me to tears. Throughout the dark years of Trump I always thought the center would hold. I believed in the checks and balances of our government and didn’t believe Trump could subvert them.
January 6th, 2020 proved me wrong. A mob egged on by Trump and enablers like my very own congressional representative Jim Banks attacked our Capitol and overran it to attempt to overthrow the election by violence. Our democracy was poised on the edge of a knife.
And our democracy survived. The traitorous insurgents were turned back. Trump was driven from Washington muffled and disgraced. The center had held.
On January 20th then I was glued to the TV, watching the peaceful transfer of power, listening to the ceremonial words and oaths, listening to Biden’s elegant words, and to the amazing poetry of Amanda Gorman. I’d taken all of that for granted, never realizing that a reality TV show host and a failed real estate agent[1] came to the breadth of a hair of bringing it all down.
But they didn’t, and I was ready to celebrate! As usual, when I want to celebrate I think of food. Debbie and I were kicking around ideas for an inauguration day feast when Debbie’s sister sent us a link to an inauguration day menu that Jose Andres was doing.
This was our menu, an unabashed ripoff of Jose’s. The theme is that it features ingredients from Biden and Harris’ home states of Delaware and California. The “Delaware Capon” seemed like a bit of a stretch, but when you have the native cuisine of Delaware as an inspiration I guess that might be the best you could do.
Arroz a Banda, what I always called paella, with crab and shrimp.
Gazpacho de Remolacha, gazpacho made with beets, served cold. It sure was pretty, but I hate beets. When I was in elementary school we had to eat everything on our trays at lunch, and when beets were on the menu I’d hide them in my milk carton. I hated them then, and I hate them now. But I wanted to be faithful the Jose’s menu and the occasion so I made it and choked it down.
A nice salad of fennel and orange with a bright vinaigrette was the perfect thing to get that nasty beet taste out of my mouth.
I think our Delaware capon was actually a northern Indiana fryer, but stewed with dried fruits and walnuts it was delicious.
Finally a flan infused with orange. I often have troubles with custardy desserts but this came out perfect. I steeped the custard with orange peels for about 10 minutes and it came out just lightly perfumed with orange.
And we just happened to have a bottle of California sparkling wine in the cellar. Neither of us could remember when we got it or why we had it. We usually don’t buy good champagne, but it was an unexpected stroke of good fortune to find it in our cellar.
The center has held! Cheers!
My congressional representative, Jim Banks (IN-03) refuses to admit his complicity in the attempted coup on January 6th and continues to spew the same rhetoric that led to it.
When we packed up my Mom’s apartment after she died we found some pearls among her things. I’d forgotten about those pearls, if I ever knew about them. My sister Anne said they’d been given to her by a Japanese educator who visited Elmhurst High School when Mom was an administrator there. I remember Toshi, the visitor. I’ve forgotten his last name. Anne said Mom had told her the pearls were really nice.
We took the pearls to Steve Mauger who does business in Fort Wayne as “Your Personal Jeweler.” I’d gotten an opal necklace from him years ago for Debbie for our anniversary, maybe around 2004? Steve looked at the pearls and said, “these are really nice.”
We decided to split up the necklace so each of the heirs could have a few pearls to do something with. I decided to do a bracelet and I talked with Steve about what could be done. After some back and forth I ended up sending him a rough sketch.
Steve took that idea and produced this bracelet.
I couldn’t be more pleased with the final product. Steve explained to me all the particulars. The “same piece as the clasp hooks through” actually has a specific name in a jeweler’s world. I’ve forgotten it, it was several hours ago when he told me.
Feeling thankful and blessed and nostalgic and sad for all that Mom gave me and all that I’ve lost. It’s fine to have a little reminder to wear.
I went to Menards today to buy supplies for what seems to be the never-ending porch renovation. Happily I found everything I needed and I parked my self in a line that seemed surprisingly short for a holiday weekend to check out.
But it wasn’t short enough for the guy in front of me. At the head of the line was a lady of approximately my age with another lady of an age to be her mother [1]. They had a cart full of plants and stuff and each item had to be explained and relayed from the clerk to the daughter to her mother and then back through the daughter to the clerk.
The guy in front of me huffed and puffed, craned his neck around to look for a shorter line, and finally went stomping off to a shorter line.
“You inutterable [2] prick,” I thought. “Did you never have a mother?”, I thought, “Do you think you’ll never grow old,” I steamed.
Then a cashier opened up a new line and I dashed over to it, my self-righteous indignation discarded by the opportunity to get out of Menards 30 seconds earlier. I wasn’t being snotty and huffy like the guy in front of me, I was just choosing a shorter line [3]. I bought my stuff and wheeled it out to the parking lot…
And there was the lady and her mother, loading their plants into a car. Mister Crankypants who huffed and puffed to another line was just coming out the door of Menards when I drove off through Menards’ puzzling parking lot.
Is there a point or a moral to this? I don’t know. I’m just missing my Mom and wishing I could take her to a store again and take forever to get checked out.
Nothing I’d rather be doing on a Friday night than being at home with my good dog Owen.
Of course the minute I stop petting him he starts whining. So I’m posting this one-handed.
It’s a good night.
The wild black raspberries produced like crazy this summer. I made black raspberry pie and black raspberry jam and black raspberry syrup and then I took all the black raspberry pulp left over from that and made black raspberry vinegar.
I had black raspberry syrup on my fried mush this weekend, and today I made a yogurt black raspberry vinaigrette to have on a salad.
The vinegar has been sitting at the back of our pantry. I never think of it until after I’ve made something it would be good in. Today I was putting together a salad for lunch tomorrow and we didn’t have any of our good homemade bleu cheese dressing in the refrigerator. What to do?
That’s when I remembered the raspberry vinegar. I like a tart, not too oily, dressing so this is how I made it.
It came out just the way I like it. The yogurt makes it creamy and smooth, and the vinegar makes it tart. The color though looks like something that couldn’t have possibly come from nature.
The photo doesn’t do it justice, in real life it’s this bizarre pink that looks like what you’d get if you puréed a Barbie [2], packaging and all.
I’m looking forward to enjoying last summer’s black raspberries again tomorrow for lunch!
Desperately trying to stay awake until the New Year (it’s 9pm, 12/31) I’ve been surfing the presidential candidate’s sites, considering their fundraising appeals. (All of the following are from official campaign communications.)
My native (Indiana) son, Mayor Pete Buttigieg is apologetic, ‘This is the last time you’ll hear from me this year’ … ‘Can you make one last contribution right now’ …
Elizabeth Warren comes across as desperate, ‘We’re only hours away from the biggest fundraising deadline of the year, and we’re at risk of missing our $20 million goal.’
Bernie Sanders pitches unity, ‘There is only one way we win — and that is together. ‘
Joe Biden, … wait … Joe Biden is from Scranton, PA? Site of “The Office” TV series? Setting for Harry Chapin’s classic “30,000 Pounds of Bananas” song? Whoa. Shaking my head to clear it.
Anyway, Joe is taking to the pulpit, “We are in a battle for the soul of America. “
Donald Trump comes across as a belligerent illiterate nitwit:
I’m With You, and I will FIGHT for you, and I will WIN for YOU.
This is a MOVEMENT.
Why is “With” capitalized, and not “will?” Why is “you” spelled “You”, “you”, and “YOU?” Why are contractions inconsistently applied, “I’m” but “I will?”
I expect in each case the candidates are trying to appeal to their base.
I ran the HUFF today at Chain O’ Lakes. It’s a 50K trail run with an 11.3 mile “fun run.” I’m not in 50K shape. I’m not really in 11 mile shape either. I hadn’t done much more than 6 miles in a training run for several months. But one day after a pleasant training run I signed up for the fun run in a fit of optimism.
Today was a beautiful day for a run on the trails. Just above freezing at the start and the trails were only muddy in spots. At 6 miles I was feeling great, fine and strong and thinking my optimism had been justified.
Ah, hubris! By mile 8 the wheels had come off. My right knee felt like it was going to buckle on every stride. The range of motion in my right hip was down to almost nothing. I waddled through miles 8 and 9 alternately feeling sorry for myself and cussing my stupid self for signing up for a race I knew wasn’t in shape for.
At the HUFF around mile 10 you come out of the woods at the west end of Sand Lake and you can see the beach house where the finish line is set up. The end was literally in sight! My spirits and my legs perked up.
I came around the west edge of Sand Lake running faster than I had all day and remembered that I’d run that same trail when I was 15 years old and working as a lifeguard at Sand Lake. 47 years ago.
I wondered what 15 year old me would’ve thought if I’d known I’d be running this same trail 47 years later? What would 15 year old me want 62 year old me to know? What does 62 year old me want my 15 year old doppelgänger to know?
I thought about these things as I went through the last mile, feeling strong, feeling optimistic, feeling good again, and I didn’t come up with any answers for current or 47 years ago me.
I’m just happy to be feeling good again.
The centre has held [1], perhaps things won’t fall apart. [2]
Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?